Each business entity of an institution, such as a financial services institution, maintains a separate set of data for a user, often in a separate data storage device associated only with that business entity. The data for a user that is maintained by one business entity is not accessible by the other business entities of the same institution, and is not shared with the other business entities of the same institution. Because of this, a user may often have to provide the same information, such as banking account information, separately to the various business entities of the same institution, which is time consuming, inefficient, and expensive for the user, the business entities, and the institution.
Additionally, some business entities associated with an institution are not integrated into the institution's web presence. For these business entities, the only channels of communication for a user are telephone or mail. This is inefficient and expensive, as it requires back office processing and handling by service representatives, and does not provide user self-service.